Jennifer sat on the edge of Charolette's bed, with Charolette seated right next to her. They were only a foot apart and Jennifer was as nervous as she's ever been. Her heart was racing a mile a minute and her face felt warm as she was blushing so hard. After what seemed like an hour, Charolette placed her hand gently onto Jennifer's thigh, just inches from her knees. Jennifer's breath hitched inher throat and for a moment, she wasn't sure if she could breathe. 

She snapped out of her trance and met the gaze of the girl beside her and she suddenly forgot the girls name. 'what's her name? I'll look so stupid if i say the wrong name. The papers! The papers she had dropped, they had her name on it! Charlie? no. Charolette! That's it!' Jennifer thought to herself all while charolette is looking at her, thinking that the girl's head was going to explode any moment.

"Can I kiss you?" Charolette asked softly.

Jennifer wanted to say 'yes', but she was scared that if she did, Charolette would tell the whole school.

"I have to go." Jennifer said and got up. She rushed out of Charolette's room, down the hallway and outside. She ran to her car and got in before starting it up and heading home.

The entire trip home she thought about what might have happened if she had kissed Charolette. Her mind was racing a mile a minute as she thought about what it would have been like to press her lips against Charolette's soft plump lips. She imagined her lips moving in sync with Charolette's and then Charolette would touch Jennifer's lip with the tip of her tongue, asking permission for entrance. Jennifer would gladly let her in so Charolette's tongue could explore her mouth and both tongues would wrestle for dominance. Jennifer imagined Charolette's tongue being rough, yet soft.

Imagining the feeling of kissing Charolette gave her a strange feeling in her stomach. It was new and wonderful feeling. When she imagined Charolette pulling away from the kiss in her daydream, the feeling in her stomach stopped. Like a car hitting a brick wall during the testing of airbags. 

Jennifer sighed when the feeling disappeared. She tried to reimagine it but couldn't. She had never experienced anything like it before. She tried find a word to describe what it was that she had felt, but was drawing a blank as to any description, other than the word amazing.

When she arrived home she decided to do some researching to find out what it was. She raced up the stairs to her room and tossed her bookbag onto her bed that was still unmade from this morning. She sat down at her desk and pressed the power button, making the computer hum to life.

Jennifer logged into the computer as soon as the screen allowed her to. She opened google chrome and typed in, 'feeling one gets when seeing two people kiss.' 

The first result that came up was for a website she had never been on before. the image it displayed was of two girls in their twenties, kissing. It was similar to that of what she imagined and it brought back the same feeling she had earlier. 

Jennifer clicked on the image and a new tab opened and the video started playing. The logo of the website appeared first then one of the girls appeared on camera, followed by the second girl. the girls exchanged the kiss the image displayed and was like the one she had dreamed about.

The video was fifteen minutes and thirty seven seconds in total but as the video went on, the feeling Jennifer experienced, got stronger. She stared in awe of the two girls on the screen. She loved this video, so she saved it. 

The video was down to the last eight minutes and she was feeling a pleasure in her groin as well as her stomach, when she heard foot steps coming up the stairs and towards her room. 'shit.' she thought. It wasn't like she had her hand in her pants touching herself but she was tempted to. To make things worse, she had left her bedroom door open.

She muted the computer's volume then closed the browser just seconds before her mother walked into the room. Her mother had this look on her face like she knew what her daughter had been watching and was tempted to tease her.

"Come down stairs and help me make dinner." Her mother instructed. "And please make your bed, you don't live in a pig pen." she added before walking away and going back down stairs to the kitchen.

Jennifer hated cooking with her mother. It always turned into her mother making Jennifer do all the cooking and her mother would have a seat on the couch. Most days Jennifer was able to avoid it by eating left over or warming something up from a can. Anything to avoid being the one to make dinner and potentially fucking it up.

Jennifer walked into the kitchen after practically dragging herself away from the computer. As usual, Jennifer's mother handed her the kitchen tool, that could double as a bludgeon instrument as Jennifer's often thought about, and walked away to the living room.

This evening was different than most nights when Jennifer was practically forced to cook. It was different because Jennifer could be left alone to her thoughts and there was very little chance of being interrupted. 

She wanted to think about Charolette, and for a few minutes she had, but it was not like earlier during the car ride home. It was about Charolette in general. She liked her, there was no doubt about that but Jennifer wasn't positive that she had genuine feelings of love for her or if it was just a feeling of admiration. It was like she wanted to be friends with her but also more than that at the same time. Jennifer wanted to tell Charolette how she felt about her but was also terrified of the idea of anyone finding out. Especially Charolette.

After only a few minutes her mind drifted to Marcus. The boy that she had passed in the hallway. His beautiful blonde short locks and when he smiled, his teeth were as white as pearls or even something that she could compare to the whitest white pigment known to mankind, titanium dioxide. His smile was indescribable compared to the pools of blue that were his eyes. They were nothing like Charolette's, they were prettier. 

Jennifer assumed he was dating that slut from the cheerleading team. Jennifer didn't even want to think about her. just the thought of her name could give you herpes or worse. Jennifer shuddered at the thought of what diseases the girl might carry.

"Is it done yet?" Jennifer's mother called from the living room. 

Jennifer looked down at the pan on the stove to see the food burnt and stuck to it. It was trashed. indigestible for any human.

"not yet!" Jennifer called out to her mother. 

"Get it done! Now!" Her mother yelled. Her mother was not a patient woman, not in the least. she had a temper that would make the hulk look like a saint. Jennifer would run to her room and cry when she was little and her mother would fly off the handle. At sixteen, Jennifer just rolled her eyes and set the pan aside to start over.

The family sat down to dinner about an hour later and it was completely silent. not one word was spoken. Jennifer got up from the table after forty minutes of silence. She didn't care for silence at home because it meant she might be in trouble. 

After tossing her plate in the sink and nearly breaking it, she went back up to her room and this time closed the door behind her. she took a step away from the door before turning back to lock the door. she made a mental note to always lock her door when there was a chance she might look up what she did earlier.

She sat down at her desk and fired up her computer. The computer came to life quicker than it had earlier that evening and she opened her web browser. The video was still on the screen but paused. She finished the video she was watching earlier until she was rudely interrupted. One of the girls were going down hard on the other who's face was exuberating pleasure. The blonde, the one who reminded Jennifer so much of Charolette was being pleasured. The girl was biting her lip so hard then she would moan and arch her back, which Jennifer didn't understand how having that done to a girl could feel so good. When Jennifer finished watching the video, she noticed just below it that there was a thumbs up and thumbs down. she clicked on the thumbs up and watched it go from gray to green.

Jennifer smiled to herself as she closed the tab before her screen revealed her Facebook page that she had forgot to close out. She sighed and moved her mouse to log out when she was alerted to a notification. Curiously, she clicked on it and it revealed a friend request from Charolette. Jennifer's heart skipped a beat as she clicked 'accept'.

Moments before she logged out, she got a message from Charolette. 

'I'm sorry about earlier, I didn't mean to scare you.' Charolette had sent.

Jennifer felt releived. 'Don't worry about it. I'm just not into girls.' Jennifer wrote.

Internally she felt like she was lying to herself but she didn't understand why she felt like it was a lie. It wasn't like anyone would know that it was a lie. She wasn't even sure if it was the truth. Her emotions were now like the tangled ropes on the deck of a ship, or the balled up mess of a pair of headphones in someone's pants pocket.

One simple word broke her heart, tore it right in two. 'Oh..' It was all Charolette wrote. In that one simple word, the disappointment could be heard very clearly. Jennifer wanted to reply back with, 'but I'm not sure,' or even, 'I might like girls.' Anything would have been better than what Jennifer replied with.

'Sorry.' Jennifer typed back before immediately logging off and feeling tears well up in her eyes. If there was anything she knew for sure, it was that right now, she needed to cry. just cry.

That simple word that Charolette had replied with sat with Jennifer for weeks. She would sit on the window seat and stare out into the window for hours, just reliving the conversation she had with Charolette. Every time she thought about it again, it made her cry and her heart broke a little more.

Kids would ride through the alley behind her house and a tiny smile would appear on her face as if somehow their happiness radiated to her. And if for only a few moments, things didn't seem so dreary.

One afternoon, Jennifer's mother told her to go outside and do something. Jennifer was perfectly content where she was but the last thing she wanted was to make her mother mad. "Okay." Jennifer said and got up. She grudgingly made her way over to her door to slip on her shoes. Leggings and a loose crop top was all she wore anymore.

She followed her mother down the stairs and then went out the front door. She tucked her phone in the side pocket of her leggings and started down the sidewalk. There weren't many people out and there was a park just a couple blocks away. She kept her head down as she walked. It was a habit she had taken to when she was middle school and it was something she didn't realize she did.

Jennifer reached park, and as she walked into the park, she saw one person already there. The person was sitting on a swing but wasn't swinging. She saw that they had short blonde hair and as she approached them, it became clear to her who it was.

"Marcus?" she asked.

The boy turned to look at her. "Yea." he said smiling.